I received an email with some exciting news from FamilySearch recently. The email is quoted below.
“The new.familysearch.org website [currently only available to members of the LDS church] will, sometime in the future, become integrated into the familysearch.org website and become the “Family Tree” menu option. The new.familysearch.org website will then go away. Since the general public has access to familysearch.org, there needs to be a way to distinguish between members of the LDS Church and those who are not LDS Church members. Therefore FamilySearch accounts were created. Anyone who is not a member of the LDS Church can register for and get a FamilySearch account. Members of the LDS Church can register for and get an LDS Account. Familysearch.org accepts both LDS Accounts and FamilySearch accounts…Clicking the Create a New Account link on the familysearch.org website will allow anyone to register and choose either an LDS Account or a FamilySearch account.”
This integration of FamilySearch & NewFamilySearch (NFS) will be beneficial to both LDS church members and other alike. The current “family tree” allows for the submission of genealogical information to be submitted and linked into one massive pedigree/tree. The data submitted by every user is preserved, but multiple records for a single individual can be combined. This ‘collaborative genealogy’ approach has many advantages, but especially being able to contact descendants of a common ancestor and discuss differences in information and sources. It also provides the ability to have an online discussion about any individual in the system as well as sign up for email alerts any time info is added or edited on any individual you select.
This will provide a free alternative for anyone interested to keep their genealogy online. The ability (similar to ancestry.com) to associate images of records and other media (pictures, etc.) is also supposed to be added to the system soon. It’s a great time to be involved in genealogy and family history.
